01 Jan Neville Goddard Lectures: “No Other Foundation” [1963]

1/23/64

Tonight’s subject is “No Other Foundation,” and this we take from the 3rd chapter of 1st Corinthians: “No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid.” Then it names the foundation and calls that foundation Jesus Christ (verse 11). So when you hear the word you might think of a man, something outside of yourself. The whole vast world does. I know the Christian world does, and the Jewish world does. The Christian world accepts this outside leadership, called Jesus Christ; and the Jewish world cannot accept Jesus Christ as the savior of the world. So here we have one billion people in the world who will, when they hear the word Jesus Christ, think in terms of an external leader. And yet this is the foundation of the world. Now, what is this foundation? “No other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” May I tell you that this foundation, Jesus Christ, is your own wonderful human Imagination, that that is Jesus Christ.

Let me now turn to a chapter that is not read, not very often, really. It’s from the 1st Book of Samuel, the 8th chapter. The people of Israel demand a king to rule over them, and so the prophet turned to the Lord and made Israel’s request. The Lord said, Give them what they want. They want a king to rule over them? Give it to them; for they have rejected not you, they have rejected me. Give them what they want; they have rejected me, they have not rejected you. But warn them solemnly what is going to happen to them by their choice of a king to rule over them. And then this is what the prophet was told by God to tell them. First of all, he will take your sons for the army, your daughters to become the cooks and the servants of the king, he’ll take your property, he’ll take your money, he’ll take everything that you possess, and when he’s taken everything, then he’ll take you. And in that day you will cry out to be saved from a king of your own choosing, but then I will have no ears to hear you. After he’s taken everything, you will cry to be saved from what you yourself decided on and I will have no ears to hear you (verses 4-18). Look into the world today and men want some external leadership, someone to lead them into paradise on earth. Then dictators rise, and here is the ___(??) save the world. The first thing he does gets them all into the army. They had no desire to be in an army. Then he appropriates and confiscates all property. Then he takes their money. He takes everything and reduces them to slavery. And then they cry…and there’s no one to hear their cry. This is eternally true as long as man thinks in terms of some external leader that is God.

The only God is I AM; there is no other God. “When I go to the people of Israel and they ask me, ‘Who sent you?’ what should I say?” The voice came back, “Say unto them I AM sent you.” Just I AM…I sent you. “When I say to them I am the one sent by the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Jacob, the God of Isaac, what then must I say?” “Just say I AM has sent you” (Ex.3:14). There is no other foundation in this world for anything I don’t care what it is. If you think some leader outside of yourself can save you, then you think in vain. You’re simply building up a picture in your mind’s eye which will lead you into a certain group that will one day want some dictator or something outside of self to lead you into some comfortable world. There is no being outside of self that could ever lead you into what you want. The only God in this world is your own wonderful human Imagination. When you say “I am,” that’s God.

Well now, how will I go about proving this “there’s nothing but God”? Well, you can prove it. Dare to assume that you are now the man, the woman that you want to be. Having assumed it, look at the world mentally and see that world reflect your assumption. For if I am now the man that I want to be, I have a frame of reference, you, and others that I know across this country and in other parts of the world. And if I am the man that I want to be, and dare to assume that I am it, they would know it. They would know it by the grapevine, things would get around, and they will become aware that Neville became the man that no one would ever dream that he ever could become. All right, so they would gradually become aware of the man that I am. So now, not waiting for them to become aware of it, I let them see it now. I dare to assume that I am now that man that I want to be and if in time I become it and they become aware of it, haven’t I found the foundation stone? Are we not told, “All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made (John 1:3)?” Well, I think now of something not here. I think of it. The very act of thinking of it, isn’t that an action that is creative? Well, the Bible recognizes only one source of a dream, whether that dream be a day dream or the dream of the night, all dreams and all visions proceed only from God. They have no other source of a dream. Well, I now think of something that is not here, and I enact in my mind’s eye a lovely drama implying the fulfillment of a dream. Well, that’s a dream, and the Bible recognizes only one source of any dream, be it a daydream or a night dream, well, haven’t I found God? If God is the only foundation stone out of which all things come, and I have just discovered the source out of which my dream came, haven’t I found him?

Well, God is your own wonderful human Imagination. If you’re not willing to accept it, and like the children of Israel in that 8th chapter of 1st Samuel you insist on an external leadership, alright, that’s your privilege (verse 10). But I must warn you, so he said to the prophet Samuel, warn them solemnly of the consequences of their choice, but grant them exactly what they want. They want a leader outside of themselves? Give it to them. You can’t take it from them, but warn them of the consequences of their choice. They will become slaves. Everything in this world will be taken from them. And then when everything is taken, they’ll cry out to be saved from the king of their own choosing, but I will have no ears to hear them. They’ll go through the furnace of furnaces after they’ve made their choice to be led by something external to God.

And so he said to the prophet, “They did not reject you, they rejected me to be king over them.” Like a man rejecting his own consciousness as king over himself. I want to be and I name it, and I think if I could only meet the right people… something outside of myself. I am rejecting the king over my own being which is the true God. And then, haven’t you heard it said, someone will come home and say, “Who do you think I met today?” and they mention some person, to them a very important person. He will know so and so, who will introduce me to so and so, and then I will definitely get the job that I want. They’re rejecting God. They’re rejecting the only God in the world which is their own wonderful human Imagination. There is no other God. And so I think I’m going to become rich because I know rich people, or that some rich person met me at a party and he’s going to introduce me to someone else, who in turn will introduce me to someone else, and through this contact I will really get what I want. I have rejected God, the only God. There is no other foundation in this world but God, and God is your own wonderful human Imagination. And by him—it’s personified, it’s called “him” not “it”—by him all things are made and without him there is not anything made that is made. In him is life, and that life is the light of men.

Well, I know from my own personal experience that I have assumed, when reason denied it, when my senses denied it, that I was the man that I wanted to be. I assumed it. I had no reason in this world to believe I could ever become it; I simply assumed it. I believed it. Then I rested in my assumption just as though it were true. Then things happened. And I can’t tell you how they happened. On reflection you will say to yourself, “Well, it would have happened anyway.” It always happens so naturally that you would think if you didn’t do what you did, it would have happened anyway. And so you’re misled to believe, well, maybe that isn’t causation after all. Maybe this thing really would have happened and the whole thing would have moved like a river flowing. But it isn’t. Had you not assumed that you were the man, the woman that you wanted to be, not a thing would have happened in the direction that it did happen. I find it time and time and time again, and it always works that way; not only for myself the being speaking to you but for myself in the form of the seeming other; for there is no other.

And so, I take anyone’s request, and it seems to be another, but he, really, and she, is not another. There isn’t “another” in this world; there’s only I AM and you can’t divide it. So when you say “I am,” you’re including every being in this world. There is not a being but God, and God is I AM. So when you say “I am,” you’re calling upon God’s name, the only name, the only foundation stone, the only rock, and there is no other rock. So tonight you could assume that you are the being that you want to be, and assume it to the point where it’s reflected in your mind, where you can see reflected on the screen of the mind confirmation of your assumption. You see people seeing you as they would see you were it true, and then fall asleep. That’s all that you do. You desire, and God gave me the hunger to be other than what I seemingly am at the moment, and he who gives me that hunger can satisfy the hunger. So the whole thing begins with knowing God.

So the whole vast world teaches man that God is something outside of himself, and he isn’t. God became man that man may become God. And because there’s only God, “All that I behold, though it appears without, it is within, in my Imagination” and my Imagination is God. Divine Imagination is sunk in man as human Imagination. Because the only source of all phenomena is God, and God is Divine Imagination sunk in me as my Imagination, then it still is only Divine Imagination. The only difference between the two is when I am keyed low on this level it seems to take a little bit longer between my assumption and the fulfillment of that assumption. If I were now functioning on high levels, my assumption would be externalized immediately. Man is rising gradually into that world where everything is subject to his imaginative power and instantaneously. On this level, it’s a limit of time, a little interval of time between the assumption and its fulfillment.

So I don’t care what has happened to you this day and how dark the day looks, believe in God. And the only God, and I mean this, the only God is your own wonderful human Imagination. There is no other God. But may I tell you, when you meet your Imagination, you’re going to see it personified as yourself, the most glorious being you’ve ever seen. You’re going to meet yourself one day. When you meet him, you’ve never seen such beauty, such joy, such radiated strength in your life as yourself made visible. Because God is a person, and you’ll meet him, and it’s just like you, raised to the nth degree of beauty, majesty, strength, courage, character, all the pronouns in the world you can think of that are great. Like mercy, pity, peace, love, all embodied in one being, and it’s just like you. You’ll meet him…but it’s all your own wonderful I-am-ness.

So you can start this night, start tonight and test it. It will not fail you, but you’ve got to test it. If when you leave here this night you think, well now, that was alright, but I still am not going to take any chances, because I do believe there must be something other than myself, some other God, and so, I’ll try it, but I don’t want to blaspheme against God. I was taught to believe in some God other than my own consciousness, and that man tells me that God is my Imagination. That is difficult to grasp. It’s so much easier to believe that God is something outside as the priests and the rabbis and the ministers of the world talk about. It’s so much easier to believe in that kind of a God, and hope that he will look upon me and see me in a good light; and then have compassion upon my weakness, and then grant me what I want. It’s much easier to believe in that kind of a God.

But I tell you there were those who believed in that God…and you read it when you go home, it’s a very short chapter, the 8th chapter of 1st Samuel. Oh, do read it, not more than a few verses: Go and tell them, Samuel, the consequences of their request but grant it. They have not rejected you; they have rejected me to rule over them as king. They will not accept the God which was revealed to them in the very second book of the Bible, for Samuel comes afterwards. In the second book of the Bible he said: “When I go to the people of Israel and I say to them, ‘The God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, sent me unto you’ and they say to me, ‘What is his name?’ what should I say?” “Just say unto them, ‘I AM has sent you’,” that’s all. When they ask for the name of the God who sent you and you claim that that God is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, just say “I AM has sent you.”

Man finds it difficult to keep the tense. He always speaks of thou art or he is, but never I am. So one comes into the world bringing I-am-ness, and they said of him, he speaks not like the scribes, he speaks as one having authority. No one can speak with authority unless he speaks from experience. And so, he comes saying, I say unto you…for I testify to the things that I have seen and things that I have heard. If you would not believe the things that I have seen and heard on this level, how would you believe the things that I have seen and heard from heaven? How can I tell you of heavenly things if you will not believe me when I speak of earthly things? And so, the being speaking is your own wonderful I-am-ness.

And may I tell you as I stand before you, every character in scripture, from the beginning to the end, is buried in you. That is where the fathers are buried and every one you are going to resurrect. When you resurrect them, one after the other, you’ll know them more intimately than you know any being in this world. Every one will rise. And who resurrects any being in this world?—only God. Jehovah is the resurrecting power of the world. So when he resurrects, and Jehovah’s name is I AM, you will know who you really are. For you’ll lift up one after the other. And may I tell you when you lift them up and you see them, and you know them forever, you’ve always known them, but they’ve died. All these are the fathers who died and were buried in Egypt, and Egypt is your own wonderful, wonderful being. That’s where they’re all buried.

One day the tree begins to bloom and out comes this one. Out comes Joseph, and Joseph is the last of the seed plot, the Book of Genesis. The book begins, “In the beginning God…” and it ends “…in a coffin in Egypt.” That’s how the book begins and ends. In the beginning is God, I AM, and then the last one, in a coffin in Egypt. Who was the coffin? Joseph. Well, he is the prototype of Imagination. That’s the first symbol that appears in the world of Imagination; for he was the dreamer. He interpreted all the dreams; he knew exactly what the meaning of a dream was. He saved, by his dreams, his brothers who sold him into Egypt. He saved his father. He saved the world from starvation by his dream. Then he died and was buried in Egypt, but he made all those who came with him pledge they would not leave him in Egypt. They would raise him out, take his body out and take it into the land that was promised.

May I tell you the day will come…and I know, tonight, one. I have been waiting for someone to meet him, for confirmation of those that I have seen. And one could tell me this past week, “I saw Joseph.” When you see him, you don’t have to ask one word, “Who are you?” you know who he is. There are millions of Josephs in the world, but there is only one Joseph. There are millions of Davids; there’s only one David. There are millions of Abrahams but only one Abraham. These are distinct characters that live forever, not in some past but in some imaginative eternity, all buried in man. When you look into his eyes and you see Joseph, he is not as the world thinks him to be at all. This radiant being of youth and strength; not what the world thinks he ought to be, an old man. Yet, there is no doubt in your mind who you’re looking at. You don’t have to ask one question concerning, “Who are you?” So the entire Old Testament is buried in man, and it lifts itself up in man as man begins to awake. So the New Testament is only the fulfillment of the Old. The New interprets the Old, not vice versa. Not until it begins to awake in man can the Old be understood. All of a sudden the whole thing begins to appear, and every character of the Old Testament unfolds in the mind of man. Then you meet them one after one after one, and you stand thrilled beyond the wildest dream as they begin to appear within you. They all appear…and it’s God awakening in you. So I tell you, believe it, they will appear.

But until they begin to break forward and appear in you, believe what I tell you concerning this foundation stone. The foundation stone is your own wonderful human Imagination, and that is God. Tonight you can assume that you are now the lady, now the gentleman that you want to be. And name…if it’s money, you want money…alright, name it. Everything can be dreamed into this world. It’s all a dream anyway. If you want fame, name it. I don’t care what you want in this world, dare to assume it, and wear it as God wears you. You say, “How can God wear me?” well, his name is I AM. If I ask you, “Who are you?” before you put the little tag on it you are going to precede it by saying “I am” and then you’re going to name it. You’ll say “I am John, I am Mary” so before you say John, before you say Mary, you said “I am.” That’s God’s name. So God is wearing you. You said you are Mary, but before you said Mary you said “I am.” So God is wearing Mary. Get back and feel yourself “I am.” That is God. There’s nothing but God in this world and God wears all in this world. And because all things are possible to God you can by assuming that you are what you want to be bring it into being.

Believe me when I tell you, you can search the scripture from beginning to end and you cannot find any reference in scripture where a dream was associated in any way other than with God. Listen to these words in the Book of Numbers, “I will speak to you in a dream (the Lord is speaking) and I will make myself known unto you in a vision” (Num. 12:6). You can go through the entire scripture…go through the Book of Job…”In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls upon man, then I open the ears of man and speak to him in a dream” (Job 32:14). He opens the ear and speaks to man in a dream, unstops him, but he speaks to man in a dream. So if the only source of dream in scripture is God, the only source, well, you and I know how we can dream. Many a time I’ve asked myself, “What do you want?” and then dared to assume it, and then fell asleep in the assumption that I had it, and then in the day, or the week, or the month, or the year, it happened. That assumption on my part built a dream into a fact. It built some little bridge of incident across which I moved, not knowing why, and I moved across this little bridge of incident, and when I got to the end of the bridge there was the fulfillment of my dream. I realized it.

So tonight, you take a dream and you wear it as God wears this dream. You say this is not his dream. Now listen to this carefully…it is said in the beginning that he brought forth from a man a woman, and then he told man to cleave to her and do not leave her until you become one. He brought forth woman out of man and then said to cleave to her. Leave everything, but don’t leave her, cleave to her, and then you’ll become one. Do you know what it means? Well, you think of the man, of the woman you would like to be, just think of it. I don’t care what it is, the most noble concept of the world, think of it. Did it come out of you? Didn’t you think of it? Isn’t it your emanation? Well now, you out of whom it came must cleave to it, wear it as though you were it until you adhere and you become it. Then you’ll crystallize it in this world. You are God’s dream; you are God’s desire. God so desired you, you came out from God, and then God wore you. To fulfill his own command, he cleaves to you; he doesn’t let you go, for no matter where you go you are always saying “I am.” No matter where you go in this world you say “I am.” You never point to something other than yourself and speak of it as “I am.” Wherever you are, whatever you’re feeling, you say, “I am poor, I am rich, I am known, I am unknown, I am wanted, I am unwanted, I am weak, I am strong.” No matter what you are saying you’re saying, “I am.” And that is God, and he’s wearing it.

Well now, you think of someone or think of some thing that you want to be in this world and wear it as God wears you. Cleave to it as God cleaves to you. Just as God has made himself one with you and the whole story unfolds within you, then the story in the outside world will unfold in the outer world. Whether it be health or wealth or being known or being unknown, it all unfolds in the same way that you will unfold based upon God’s eternal plan. You can’t fail if you try it…but you’ve got to operate it. We are the operant power; it doesn’t operate itself. We and we alone operate it. And so, there is no other foundation but God, and that foundation is your own wonderful human Imagination, when you say “I am.”

The day will come—and I’ve experienced it so I’m not theorizing, I’m telling you what I’ve experienced—all the characters of the Old Testament, they all appeared before me, and I know the relationship between us, every one. The great one that comes at the very end is David. When David comes, God’s only begotten Son reveals me as God. It takes the Son to reveal you as God the creator. So God’s purpose is to give himself to you, but so give himself to you that you have no doubt of that gift. God so loved you he gave his only begotten Son to you as your Son, and so the Son appears and calls you Father. When you see him you have no doubt as to who he is. But all the others come; every one will be resurrected. For you must resurrect every being; and the only power in the world that resurrects is God.

Listen to these words carefully, “Man is reborn by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” He is reborn by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1 Pet. 1:3). Well, who is Jesus Christ? It’s God, and Jesus Christ is your own wonderful I-am-ness, that’s Jesus Christ. “Christ in you is the hope of glory.” So when you are told in the Book of Jeremiah, the very first chapter, he said unto Jeremiah and Jeremiah replied, how can this be, seeing that I know nothing and I’m only a child? The word Jeremiah means “Jehovah will rise.” If Jehovah will rise, Jehovah must have fallen. So who fell? The word Yod He Vau He, the verb He Vau He, meant in its original form “to fall”—that’s what it really meant—or “to cause to fall; to blow, or to cause the wind to blow.” That’s what the word Yod He Vau meant; that’s the original form of it, which we translate today as I AM.

So who fell? Speak to Jeremiah. Jeremiah simply means, “Jehovah will rise.” If he will rise, he must have fallen. And he did: God became man that man may become God. He sunk himself in us, and divine imagining is one with human imagining. But he will rise, and when he rises, everything that he foretold will rise in us. And you will see why these characters are as they are in scripture. They are eternally true; they didn’t live in some long past, they are now alive in the most marvelous imaginative eternity buried in man, and they rise in man, and then you meet one after the other. They all know you, because you resurrect them. When you meet Abraham, he knows who you are. You are the God who told of the story to Abraham. When you meet Joseph, you know who he is and he knows who you are. You’re the God of them all, God of all the fathers. Then you meet David, and David knows you and calls you “Father.” And that’s the end of it. But every one of them you meet. They are eternally true. And this play goes on and on, because in every child born of woman God’s eternal play is buried, and then it takes root and it grows. Then comes that moment in time when the fullness of time has come and it begins to take flower, and the beings appear and the flowers appear. These are these eternal characters that appear, and you meet them one after the other. When the last has come, you depart from this wheel of recurrence.

I would not deceive you. I would not for one moment mislead you. I am speaking from experience. I’m telling you what I, personally, have experienced. I did not hear it from a man; I didn’t read it in a book. I am telling you what I know, and I tell you what I experienced and share it with you. Buried in everyone is the Old Testament, and the New Testament only explains it. Because every one will awaken in you, in the Old Testament; then you’ll understand the key given to us in the New. And it’s not some being, one unique being of unnumbered centuries ago, no, it’s you: you are Christ Jesus. And you unlock the scriptures. Scripture must be experienced in me. He said, scripture…I’ve come only to fulfill it: “Scripture must be fulfilled in me,” and they didn’t understand it. There was only an Old Testament, and he said, The Old Testament must be fulfilled in me.

How could the Old Testament be fulfilled in you when you came after the Old Testament? For we are told there were 400 years between the last book of the Old Testament and the first book of the New. That’s a perfect number, 400 years, and 400 is the cross, it’s the tau, the 22nd letter of the Hebrew alphabet. And there must be between the last book of the Old and the first book of the New 400 years. So I’ve come…I’ve borne the cross…I have come then to interpret the Old. The Old interprets itself: it awakens in me. And you tell it to everyone who has ears to hear. Some will hear it and believe it, and some will hear it and reject it; but, nevertheless, you tell it. So between the two books there’s the interval of 400 years, which is symbolized by the cross, the tau.

As the whole thing unfolds you know you are on the end. But you also know don’t judge anyone who rejects it. Everyone will eventually accept it, so don’t judge them. Leave them alone, because you were just where they are at one time in your life. Every person who would now cut your head off for saying what you say, you were in that same state once upon a time. Only I plead with you this night to read that 8th chapter of the 1st Book of Samuel, and do not…if the whole vast country wants an external leader and centralized government where they’re going to give you everything and you do nothing, they will finally take you. That’s life.

Take a simple little thing like here in Cuba…they all say to the world…don’t you recall Ed Sullivan’s picture? He brought him on the stage on a Sunday night. Ed Sullivan still goes on because people have very short memories. But I saw it vividly and recall it, he brought him on and put his arms around him and embraced him as “the George Washington of Cuba.” He embraced him, and there he hugged him before the whole vast country because Sullivan has a huge rating…and here is the George Washington of the country. He went off to Washington and he rode with Mr. Eisenhower, and he met all of the powers of our country, and here was this grand George Washington. It was Christ embodied, and all Cuba hailed him as their savior; they wanted some external savior. First thing he did, took them all in and made them soldiers, without their consent. Then appropriated all the money…American property, $2 billion, all the money…and then he took everything and took more and more and completely enslaved them. Now they can’t…they’re crying out to another god to save them from a god of their own choosing, and there’s no God to hear them.

So I ask you not to let yourself be led into that blind alley. The only God in this world is your own wonderful human Imagination. And when you turn it over to another to lead you into what you consider security, what you consider some wonderful state in this world, you are simply giving yourself over into anti-Christ, for Christ is your own I-am-ness. To turn from your own wonderful Imagination and give it to something else is to serve anti-Christ.

Now let us go into the Silence.

Now are there any questions? None? Well, when you go home…

Q: (inaudible)

A: The Bible says, Take no thought what you should wear and what you should eat, and then draws the analogy of the birds of the air, that they’re fed without effort, and the lilies of the field grow without effort. If you will simply do what most of the Bible tells you, “When you pray, believe”—is that taking thought?—“When you pray, believe that you have received, and you will receive.” That’s the 11th chapter, the 24th verse of the Book of Mark, which is the earliest of the gospels. So when you pray, that is, when you desire—because to pray means to desire; you pray for something, you desire something—then believe you have received, and you will. But then don’t take thought as to how this thing is going to come to pass, for “your Father has ways and means that ye know not of, his ways are past finding out.” So it may come in unnumbered ways that you could never devise. On reflection, everything that has happened to me after I have assumed that I am what I want to be, I virtually as a man could not have devised it. I would have thought of a thousand other ways that it should have come, and it didn’t come that way at all. But everything that I have ever done by applying this law, on reflection it seemed natural and yet I could not have devised the means. So take no thought as to how it’s going to happen. But when you do pray, believe that you have received, and you will receive.

So may I invite you all this night, when you go home, that you may be encouraged to believe only in God, read that 8th chapter of the 1st Book of Samuel. Don’t turn to any God outside of yourself. I don’t care what he looks like. He may come as a tall, majestic being. And so, when even the prophet Samuel was over taken by the height of the first one, “Surely he is the Lord’s anointed,” and the voice said to Samuel, “I have rejected him. God sees not what man sees. Man sees the outward appearance of things and God sees only the heart” (1 Sam. 16:7). So don’t judge by any outward appearance. Who knew the motive behind this takeover in Cuba…the takeover in so many parts of Africa today? In one week a Democracy is taken over. Who knows the motive behind this façade? So I tell you don’t trust anything outside of God, and God is your own wonderful human Imagination. If you are faithful to God, God will use every being in this world to fulfill your assumption…because there’s only God. But the minute you turn from God to another, then you’re going to pay the price and he warned you solemnly the price you’re going to pay. He’s going to make you a slave the minute you turn on him. So he said to the prophet Samuel, “They did not reject you, they have rejected me as king over them.” And the only one that should be king should be God, and God’s name is I AM. See, the day is coming when the Lord will be king over all the earth. On that day his name will be one…only one, on that day. When you say “I am,” are they two? On that day the Lord will be one and his name one…when he is king over all the earth. So you make God king over all the earth and the God that you would make is I AM.

Goodnight.